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Alarm Bells Sound In The Caribbean Tourism Sector
Related to country: Bahamas

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Warning Bells For Caribbean Tourism:
By Tameka Lundy -
Nassau, Bahamas:


Turbulent economic times have set off warning bells for Caribbean tourism officials who are fully aware that any upheaval in the global economy – if left unchecked – could spell disaster for the main driver of economic activity in the region.

A recent United Nations World Tourism Barometer report indicated that tourism confidence has weakened in some markets tied to increased economic volatility.

However, tourism business in The Bahamas and the Caribbean has not yet suffered dramatically as a result, Secretary General of the Caribbean Tourism Organization [CTO] Vincent Vanderpool Wallace told the Bahama Journal Tuesday in a telephone interview from his Barbados office.

"We are not yet seeing [weakness] in any substantial degree," he said.

"…But really what we see down the road we can’t help but be a little bit concerned with the sub prime problem that’s going on [and] the talk about a recession in the primary market.

"There is no doubt whatsoever that alarm bells are beginning to ring. Now we haven’t seen any dramatic falloff thus far but every single thing we see down the road suggests that we have to be very aggressive in the marketplace and also very aggressive in improving the visitor experience."

The World Tourism Barometer report showed that last year international tourist arrivals grew by an estimated six percent to reach a new record figure of 900 million which was nearly 52 million more tourist arrivals than the year before.

In the Caribbean region, there were 19.3 million international tourist arrivals, according to the report, which also indicated that the overall prospects for 2008 are positive.

The Bahamas Ministry of Tourism has yet to reveal the total tourist arrival figures for 2007. However, according to the ministry’s preliminary data, between January and October there were just under four million visitors to The Bahamas which was 3.8 percent less than the total number of tourists here between January and October 2006.

According to figures from the ministry, there were 4.7 million visitors in 2006 and 4.8 million in 2005. The figures for both years followed the five million visitor mark reached in 2004.

Asked about how confident he was that The Bahamas would be able to accomplish that feat again, Mr. Vanderpool Wallace, former director general of tourism here, said there are a few key factors that require attention.

"One of the things that is never, I think, examined as closely as it should is the total availability of rooms over the period of time you are talking about," he said.

"There are so many rooms that have been out of order and not available for sale and so we keep trying to put a quart in a pint bottle. It is not possible and so in order to get back to where we were we need to have the inventory in the first place in order to be able to do that."

Officials in The Bahamas have been preoccupied with upgrading the tourism plant; there is a massive redevelopment effort set for downtown Nassau, Kerzner International opened its exclusive phase III development last year, the Baha Mar developers are eager to get the transformation of the Cable Beach strip underway and in southwest New Providence two new upscale projects are moving ahead.

These developments are in addition to the Ritz Carlton project for nearby Rose Island and other resort projects under construction in the Family Islands.

While cosmetic improvements are essential, the CTO secretary general also pointed out that improving the overall visitor experience is also crucial.

"We can talk all day long about numbers, but until we can deliver on the experience to our customers, that is going to be as wonderful as they anticipate we are not going to be successful as we need to be so everybody has to be on board with improving the visitor experience," said Mr. Vanderpool Wallace.

He urged particular focus on the cruise industry.

"One thing that I lament all the time whenever I come to Nassau is to see on some nights in the harbour you have all these cruise ships with the lights emblazoned and downtown Bay Street is dark and people are saying we need to improve cruise passengers," he added.

"Well it’s a very strange situation and Nassau, in fact, has the closest distance between where the ships dock and where you can begin to enjoy yourself of anyone in the region, so we are suffering from some self inflicted wounds that need to be addressed and if we don’t address them, then we keep wondering why we are not as successful as we should be."

The tourism business in The Bahamas is undergoing a major transition from reliance on traditional mega-hotel destination travel, to include a larger number of smaller, mixed-use and environmentally-sensitive resorts.

The new Hubert Ingraham-led administration is adjusting the country’s tourism strategies to make them more relevant to the changing preferences of the traveling public.

In addition, advertising and public relations strategies are being fine-tuned to take into account the strengthened euro and Canadian dollar against the US dollar, which make vacations in this region increasingly attractive for Europeans and Canadian visitors.

13 February 2008

February 13, 2008 | 10:52 PM Comments  0 comments

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